
doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2485240
In many instances, customers are seen as one of the key resources for new product development (NPD), as they often have deep product knowledge as well as experience and creativity potential gained by regular product usage. From knowledge management perspective, customers’ input to NPD is manifested in different forms of knowledge. Customers’ input to NPD typically reflects their needs and desires (need information) but may also represent suggestions describing how ideas can be transferred into marketable products (solution information), in some cases it even leads to radical innovations (leading edge information). In order to internalize customer knowledge, in theory different methods are discussed. However, little is known about these methods’ effectiveness and efficiency to transmit customers’ knowledge to firms. This research identifies a total of 15 methods with the help of a systematic literature review. By systematically analyzing these methods, we found that there are methods within which customers are involved only “passively” in NPD, as well as methods that enable a more “active” customer integration. This study exhibits that the methods which enable an active customer integration, compared to methods where customers are integrated only passively in NPD, are more suitable for attaining customer knowledge within innovation development.
| selected citations These citations are derived from selected sources. This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | 15 | |
| popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Average | |
| influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Top 10% | |
| impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Top 10% |
